Am I the only one who thinks that the internet hasnt even made a dent on the games industry market from a developers point of view?
We all know how we would LIKE it to have helped us - we can communicate with gamers anywhere in the world, draw on a vast range of development information (like here at gamedev) and can even sell directly to the gamer.
In practice though, I increasingly find that the biz side of games development is the same as if I was selling fridges or bananas.
Most of the publishers and journalists (even some web site news people) will ignore communication by email. It dosen''t matter if you have a website showcasing your Quake3 beating game thats fully funded and complete, these guys will only listen to people they know who phone them. In this respect its exactly like the music biz. It dosen''t matter how good your product is, its who you know that counts. I would have thought the internet would have changed all this, I would be happy to spend my times developing games, not sat on a transatalantic phone line listening to Greensleeves because the ego-mad-publisher is too busy to talk to me.
Is it not about time that game developers voted with their feet, stopped crowding around the ''Big'' publishers like infatuated schoolgirls, and actually either
a) sold directly to the gamer, cutting out the ego-mad publishers entirely or:
b) Made better use of the few publishers who DO want to hear from small indie developers.
For example, I hear lots of people knocking Andre La Mothe, but email him your game and you know he will look at it. Now try the same with Eidos.
Glad I got that off my chest..... back to VC++...
http://www.positech.co.uk